[oceanRon]

Hello April:

Mainly I was fishing in the forums to see if there could be others who have had similar life experiences as I have had myself. I think I am a psycho-sexual abberation as regards the “unspoken” portions of human sexuality. Some women are attracted to me, not for physical looks, but for unspoken communications (which I think are mainly unrecognized and/or not understood much in the science of human sexuality). Only the younger women (some, but not all) are attracted to me (up through about twenty years and occasionally just a little more). The effect of this is that women over twenty “shut off” sexually, relative to myself. It’s as if their perception of me before they are twenty or so is as a person of the opposite sex. When they grow only a little older than that, they “flip” their perception of me so that I seem (in their eyes) to be asexual or perhaps of the same sex. Do you know what I’m saying?

This is what I think happened to my wife, and so I don’t think there is a “fix.”

We were married in the early eighties, and were all but done with sex by the mid eighties. Our marital life was really a non-sexual one after the first couple years. Additionally, I think my wife had a fairly low libido to start with. The combination of low libido and the other effect that I have tried to describe, shifted our marriage into a brother/sister thing long ago. Now – there’s nothing wrong with platonic relationships, but they can leave a romantically inclined partner hanging out to dry, a lot of the time. I’m sure she would need to take hormone supplements to change her libido even a little, and she won’t because of her views on holistic medicine. I’m really not looking for pornographic sex from her, but when I was a younger man I always thought I’d go out into the sunset with my woman squeezing my hand.

Some people think that a platonic relationship can involve holding hands. It doesn’t. Contrary to what many people think, it takes [i]some[/i] sexual desire to even hold hands. Another way to put it would be to ask the question, “Would you hold hands with your brother?” That’s platonic for ya.

Now – I’ve been unable to answer a pretty simple question. Should I sacrifice the idea I had, in my youth, about watching the sinking sunset (of our lives) while sqeezing each other’s hands? … And then just ride out the last days with someone with whom I have a lukewarm “brother” sort of relationship?

My own answer is that I pretty much have to do the lukewarm thing, or else simply go off on my own (I’m adventurous and have ideas about sailing the world) — because the abberation I am afflicted with dictates the “shut off” I have described, which will always kick in, with anybody else I might be with. It wouldn’t matter who it was. Nobody would go the long haul. Do you see my point?

Maybe it’s better to go out with somebody rather than nobody. Or not …

[oceanRon]

Thanks for the commiseration. Sometimes, the data doesn’t quite add up to the theory. I should add a bit more information to explain my own theory …

For a good part of my marriage, it was not possible to tell that I was married. No one ever believes this, but I really did lose the ring. The tan lines have long faded. It makes me laugh to hear anyone say I’m bragging about my looks. I once walked a rating line (back in the day those were all the rage), but today they are really politically incorrect! I didn’t walk through it on purpose, it just popped up among a group of twenty somethings who were having fun, I suppose. Some of the other guys (better than average) were getting 8s and 9s. I got a 2, some 4s, and a 5. Really, the rating line was correct – that’s about right for me. So … there is no bragging going on here. It’s not a socially controlled phenomenon that I’m working against. None of the women older than twenty, whose paths I have crossed over my lifetime, have taken the time to calculate anything. Their reactions (cold, distant eyes) are mostly instantaneous. The twenty year olds have eyes a’light with some kind of fire. Someone once said that a romance is made (or not) in the first five seconds. The brain does all the work, but it’s mostly subconscious. Another person said that less than half of the brain’s work deals with physical attributes. There are subconscious channels, maybe even low level telepathic channels, pheromones … you get the picture.

My theory is that these unseen channels are really the driving force here. I must be mutated in some way. Women, when they reach a certain age (say twenty one) simply switch off. They go from flirty and engaging to stone faced and dull. Not for everyone, but just for me and my mix of chemicals. I asked a question here that I probably know more about than most of the readers. I’m not sure why I bothered, to tell the truth. I’ve lived with this thing my whole life and have had a lot of time to think about it. However – writing things down sometimes leads to insight. So, maybe it’s not a total waste of time. When my wife’s age went much beyond twenty one, it happened to her too. That’s what makes this natural (or unnatural?) thing such a curse. If I’d take up with a nineteen or twenty year old who came a’callin (and they do that) … then in a couple years the same thing would happen. It would be a sexual version of the ground hog day movie. I’m probably fodder for a research program …

My kids are grown, but they factor into the equation. If I had gone off with a younger woman, they would have disowned me. That’s big for me. Also – my wife and I have an entire lifetime of history. We know each other very well. That is something that takes a lifetime to achieve, and is not something you just throw away. My romantic life (except for very early on) was really terrible. I suffered a great deal. However – I still have connection with my kids, and when the dust settles, I’m not sure who I could trust more than my wife, even if we don’t have sex. For some reasons that are NOT sexually related, I’m still inclined to hang around with my wife, even though she says she wants nothing to do with me. I’m in the rose smelling years now, and a little bit inclined lately to just sail away on a boat. Don’t know if she’ll come along though … probably not …

[oceanRon]

This was a duplicate

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